SPE poster spreads harmful stereotypes about African Americans

There are many issues that face us as MIT students daily. Many times we
are called upon by our peers, parents, administration and other members of
the community to elevate ourselves to a higher moral standard and, as
intelligent students, display a certain level of sensitivity, maturity, and
concern for our fellow humans. We may sometimes feel that we cannot live up
to such a standard, or that such a standard should not be expected of us
"mere college students." I am beginning to think that students here are
incapable of fulfilling this expectation.

I am referring to yet another posted advertisement by a fraternity that
depicts some minority group in a dubious manner. This one demonstrates poor
judgment at best. This time, the fraternity was Sigma Phi Epsilon and the
group was African-Americans. The poster depicted the standard insulting,
and frankly quite tiresome, image of an African-American, with a piece of
watermelon in his hand, in the back of the house.

I was told by a member of the house that this was a private "joke"
between a black member of the house and his white friends. Private jokes
are supposed to be private; it therefore strikes me as odd that SPE thought
the joke, which would obviously be misunderstood, would be appropriate to
place on a poster advertising a campus-wide event. It might be that we are
supposed to realize that the joke was not intended to represent all
African-Americans, but only that particular member of the house. This I
understand. All I ask is that the members of SPE and the members of the
general MIT community try to understand that African-Americans have
struggled for many hundreds of years to try to remove these images from
print, spoken, and video media.

These images are not only deeply offensive, they contribute not only to
totally baseless feelings of superiority in white people, but to the
destruction of all self-confidence in African-Americans. These images,
arguably more than perhaps any others, have completely atrophied the
developments of African-Americans as a national culture. One reason is that
the effects of such images are very insidious. They are usually cumulative,
and only manifest themselves over time, so that they are hard to notice.
The effects are that these images create feelings of isolation and
inferiority in the people at whom they are directed. These are feelings
that confront African-Americans here and elsewhere, making life a very
painful experience -- one that all too many African-Americans try to ease
through suicide or hatred.

Unfortunately, some African-Americans allow such images to go
unchallenged. They fear that whites will disapprove, or that they will be
propelled into a long battle in which they are destined to lose, since
winning will only come after a restructuring of thought processes that are
deeply ingrained in American society and its people.

What disturbs (but does not surprise) me is people think that negative
images are somehow okay, and that the effects are somehow diminished, if
they are done in jest. One need only look at the history of television to
see that the same images that have done so much damage to the
African-American community were ones that were used in comedy. The white
people then (and now) neither knew nor cared what African-Americans had to
say about these images, they were comfortably oblivious to the damage they
were doing, all in the name of comedy. Fifty years ago, white people
laughed at Step'in Fetchit. Fifty years later they laugh at Buckwheat.

I do not believe that SPE intended to disgrace and dishonor
African-Americans, but it is said that the road to hell is paved with good
intentions. I have tried to demonstrate this point by writing this letter.
I hope that everyone who reads this letter will take a moment to stop and
think about their relations (or lack thereof) with African-Americans and to
think about how they interact with us. I also hope that the brothers of SPE
do not think that I am placing the onus upon them alone, but I truly
believe that there will never be sincere unity between the races (nor
should there be) until all of us begin to seriously examine every aspect of
our lives, and try to remove the insensitivities and the insidious forces
within ourselves which are threatening to destroy us all.